Prepare your children for the pleasure trap.

Prepare your children for the pleasure trap

In all of the ease and comfort of modern life it is easy to forget what the world is truly like. It is easy to lose sight of the need to prepare your children for a world which is not their friend. It is easy to love the world. It is so easy that God has given you a clear and dramatic command not to love it. The world has only the appearance of beauty, not the reality. But the appearance of beauty is alluring and powerful, even though it is false. Satan is hard at work putting an appealing, beautiful veneer over the horrible world that he rules. Never underestimate the danger of false beauty!

Paul describes the world outside of Christ is it really is:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. Ephesians 2:1-3

Your job as a parent is to use the time while your children are in the protected environment of your home to prepare them for world Ephesians describes. It is a deceptive, hostile world that they must soon face. It is a pleasure trap! They must be strong enough and wise enough to see through Satan’s deceit.

The enemy has constructed a giant illusion. In this world, pleasure promises freedom but leads to slavery, and hard work promises fulfillment but often leads only to hard times. This is not what people expect; it is not what the world promises. Yet these promises are part of a grand deception.

• Satan’s world says that personal peace can be achieved through the death of an unborn child.

• Satan’s world says that personal peace can be found with financial security.

• Satan’s world says that sex should not be restricted to marriage.

Satan’s world is not what it seems. You must prepare your children for a world which is deceptive by its very nature. For the most part, the people in this world do not realize they are being deceived. Most would be shocked and horrified to know that they actually are serving Satan. College professors, business executives, self-help gurus, entertainers, and others who do not know Christ are, in fact, serving the cause of Satan, whether they realize it or not.(See Ephesians. 2:1-3 above) People who think they have the answers to life are, in fact, being led down a path of deception that will one day eventually end in great sadness and horror.

And the grandest deception of them all – Jesus Christ is not the way, the truth and the life.

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Jay Younts

John A. (Jay) Younts is the Shepherd Press blogger, and is a ruling elder serving at Redeemer Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Moore, South Carolina. He has written Everyday Talk, Everyday Talk About Sex & Marriage, Finding the Right Track, the In Touch With Paul stewardship series, and What About War. He has studied and taught about biblical childrearing for 30 years. He and his late wife Ruth have five adult children.